Month: June 2014

World Cup, Brazil

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Apologies for the silence, but I have been away. Not soaking up culture exactly, but enjoying some artistic play (and some not so artistic play) in the form of football. I will not be offering specific critiques of games, both because I’m completely unqualified to do so and because, well, they’re over, but here are some general observations.

I must begin by saying what an inspired choice it was to have Brazil host the tournament. We have all read the doom and gloom stories in the press (which always seems to happen) and I make no promises about the Olympics, which are much more complex to host than a World Cup. But this was an excellent World Cup. The people were friendly and fun, the public transport was efficient and timely, the stadiums generally very good, and the beer relatively cheap. The security presence was certainly heavy handed, with military police checking tickets and regular police on (literally) every street corner, but it added to the sense of safety. It is not my place to comment on Brazilian domestic politics so I will refrain from comment on whether the money should have been spent as it was, but what they achieved in terms of hosting the world’s premier football tournament was considerable.

The atmosphere at the games themselves was one of genuine joy. Everyone was incredibly friendly and welcoming. There were, of course, a lot of Americans everywhere, but one could sense the presence of a rising middle class in many other countries, such as Mexico and South Korea. Brazilians generally wore their own team’s shirts, but would customise with face paint supporting one of the countries playing in the game. That did not always last, however, and we were treated more than once to the entertaining sight of a Brazilian fan with a Belgian flag painted on his cheek cheering loudly for South Korea.

People at the World Cup really, really love the wave. I have never seen it entered into with such enthusiasm. And while discussing the wave, please can people in the UK refrain from calling it the “Mexican wave”? It has been almost 30 years since the World Cup in Mexico and no one else calls it that. In addition, whilst everyone was very friendly to us, it was notable that European teams (and that of the USA) were less popular among Brazilians than other teams, which is certainly understandable.

A final couple of notes, some of which are applicable to London theatre as well. First, if you are going to hold up a flag, make sure it’s the right way around to the venue/cameras, not to you. It doesn’t matter if the flag is symmetrical, of course, but we all know what a backwards US flag looks like. In addition, I have noticed a disturbing epidemic of people refusing to stand up to allow others to access their seats. I don’t mind so much once play (or, the play) has begun, but before the performance, there is no excuse. Those are their seats, yes it’s tedious to stand, but it’s how theatres work. Get up and let people in.

Very last observation: James Rodriguez from Colombia is going to be the world’s next superstar. Utterly amazing player. Do watch Colombia’s match against Brazil on 4 July to see what I mean.

Handbagged

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We’ve certainly had plenty of opportunities to revisit the Queen and Margaret Thatcher in recent years, what with the Queen and Iron Lady films and The Audience play. Accordingly, it took me a few minutes to settle in to the idea of someone other than Helen Mirren playing The Queen and Meryl Streep playing Lady T.

The conceit is interesting, as we have two actors each playing the younger and older Queen (Marion Bailey and Lucy Robinson) and Maggie (Stella Gonet and Fenella Woolgar) and two others playing literally everyone else (Neet Mohan and Jeff Rawle, who I remember fondly from Drop the Dead Donkey). Off the top of my head, they took on Denis Thatcher, Prince Philip, Neil Kinnock, Michael Heseltine, Arthur Scargill, Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Ken Clarke, Gerry Adams, Michael Shea, and many more I’ve forgotten. They also have a bit of banter “as actors” which is amusing.

The action takes place over Thatcher’s tenure in office, bookended by her visits to the Queen at the beginning and end of her time in office. The younger actors play them at the time, and the older actors offer reflections and observations. The fourth wall is broken constantly, which is a bit disconcerting at first, but you get used to it. I’m not sure whether it was makeup or not, but the older actors bore a much closer resemblance to their characters than did the younger ones. It did not much matter, though, as Fenella Woolgar, in particular, had Maggie’s voice and mannerisms down pat.

The play did not cover anything with which I was not already familiar, but it was interesting to revisit the period. Neet Mohan offers a young person’s point of view, at one point explaining that he had “wiki’d” a particular issue for us. He also acts as the voice of the opposition, bringing up unpleasant subjects, especially for Thatcher, such as the miners’ strike. The play is demonstrably in favour of the Queen’s supposed point of view, but I suppose that is only fair, since she was correct on issues such as the reunification of Germany and apartheid sanctions.

The acting was very good throughout, with particular praise for both Mohan and Jeff Rawle, who offered, amongst other things, a flawless Denis Thatcher and very good Neil Kinnock and Prince Philip. The American accents leaned rather too much towards the Texan for Ron and Nancy, but would have been very accurate for W, had he been around at the time. This continues until 2 August and is worth catching, as it is very funny at times.

 

The Pajama Game

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Sometimes “classics” are best left in the past. That was the conclusion of the gentleman sitting next to me, when we chatted at the interval of The Pajama Game. In some respects I agreed with him, but in others I did not. The Pajama Game is a musical, described by one of its characters as being “about capital and labour.” Well, sort of. It’s a light-as-air concoction, in which management and a union face off, with the two romantic protagonists, Babe and Sid, on opposite sides of the conflict.

Happily, the singing and dancing were fantastic, particularly Dan Burton as Sid (he is the understudy and it was great to see him in the main role). That said, however, there was not an enormous amount of chemistry between him and Joanna Riding as Babe. I would have liked to have seen whether that was present with Michael Xavier in the role. But they gamely did their best, and worked together very well. I also very much enjoyed Gary Wilmot as Hinesy (with one enormous exception that we will come to later) and Alexis Owen-Hobbs was a delightful Gladys.

The songs are the real stars of this show. “Hey There,” “Once-a-year Day,” “Hernando’s Hideaway,” and “There Once Was a Man” are deservedly classics. They were sung well here by a uniformly strong cast. The plot, however, is a bit silly, and the denouement falls somewhat flat, with one side giving in due to fear of exposure, rather than any outcome of negotiation.

But I’m afraid my dislike of this production is for a more serious reason. I understand that there are no First Nations people in the UK, and that actors and directors in London have probably never been exposed to them. However, there is really no excuse, in modern London, for having the character of Hinesy dress up like a dime store Indian during the knife-throwing scene, and make a fool of himself pretending to “Haw” and dance around in an “Indian” manner. It may have been in the original script, I don’t know, but it certainly has no place in 2014. It could easily have been changed, the only casualty being a stupid joke about “savages.” I also cringed slightly during the Hernando’s Hideaway scene, with the characters all wearing Mexican hats, but that wasn’t as bad and was necessary for the plot.

In the end, I think that if classic musicals are going to be revived in the modern era, they have to be carefully reviewed to ensure that the casual racism of the past is no longer present. This is not the fault of the cast, who did a great job, but those in charge need to think about it a little harder.

Clarence Darrow

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Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. That was the somewhat dispiriting conclusion I came to last night, after watching the utterly wonderful Kevin Spacey in his one man Clarence Darrow production at the Old Vic. Don’t get me wrong, it was a stunning, thought-provoking evening and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

However, the subject matter of the play made it clear that the good fight which Clarence Darrow fought must be re-fought every few decades, and not just in the USA. Murder by children, the fight for workers’ rights, the fight against creationism, all these are far from over. The only crusade of Darrow’s that I think is being won is the fight against the death penalty, although its demise is certainly taking a while.

I had been aware that Darrow defended the child killers Leopold and Loeb, and of course of the Scopes Monkey Trial. I had not been aware of his earlier work as a labour lawyer and his defence of the McNamara brothers, who set off an explosion in the LA Times building in 1911. All of these cases were discussed in some detail in the play, although we were fortunate to hear from Thea Sharrock, the director, who told us that the original 1974 version of the play (written for Henry Fonda) had to be significantly changed to explain things to a modern, London audience.

A case that I had not been aware of in particular was that of Ossian Sweet. In 1925, a white mob in Detroit attempted to drive a black family out of the home they had purchased in a white neighborhood. In the struggle, a white man was killed and the eleven black people in the house were arrested and charged with murder. Dr. Ossian Sweet and three members of his family were brought to trial. The play drew heavily from Darrow’s closing statement, which lasted over seven hours and is seen as a landmark in the Civil Rights movement.

I must, of course, say a few words about Spacey’s performance. It was an absolute barnstormer. I knew a lawyer in New York, who was originally from Virginia and certainly retained the accent, and who would routinely sway juries by saying that he was just a “simple country lawyer.” Spacey had some of this quality of deceptive simplicity, and used it to great effect with the audience.

Striding back and forth, haranguing us like we were a jury, he brought these long-dead cases to vivid, vibrant life. He addressed chairs as though they had people in them (his wife, his clients), which was a surprisingly effective technique. He also used people in the audience to illustrate his points, most memorably plunking down in the middle of an attractive group of young people to demonstrate his belief in “free love.” (I, apparently, have the look of a Presbyterian.) We were supposed to meet him afterwards, but he did not stay long. It did not matter; he had given us everything on stage.  A truly stunning evening. Do catch it if you can.

The Last Days of Troy, Globe

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The story is, of course, well-known, and thematically well-suited to the Globe. The play is a new version by Simon Armitage. The first act has several alternating story lines; first, we follow the Greeks, with Agamemnon and Odysseus bickering with Achilles and Patroclus. On the Trojan side, Helen and Andromache are somewhat stereotypical frenemies, whilst Priam and Hector discuss strategy and Paris whinges. The third story line is meant to be the lightest, with Zeus and Hera a down-at-heel married couple, with Athene their seemingly teenaged daughter.

As seems to be prevalent lately, the second half of the play is much stronger than the first. The Greek and Trojan story lines were strong throughout, but the tone of the gods’ storyline was slightly off. The jokes fell a little flat, and whilst it was well acted, did not seem completely in line with the rest of the story. The use of Clare Calbraith to play Thetis as well as Andromache was somewhat confusing, as the costumes were very similar and it did not seem to me that the character of Thetis was particularly necessary to the plot.

The casting is excellent. Lily Cole was a tall and very beautiful Helen, although it was difficult to tell whether her impassive affect was due to the character’s desire to keep her own counsel or simply to stiff acting. I will choose to believe the former. Clare Calbraith and Simon Harrison were an affectionate and moving Andromache and Hector, and it seemed to me they had better chemistry than Helen and Paris. Tom Stuart was, however, an excellent Paris, perfectly cast and nailing the character’s wispiness, well contrasted with Hector’s dominance.

On the Greek side, David Birrell was a forthright Agamemnon and Colin Tierney a wily and cunning Odysseus, who reminded me physically of a young Ralph Fiennes. Jake Fairbrother was an extremely athletic Achilles, and his grief for Patroclus very affecting. Amongst the gods, Richard Bremmer’s Zeus was tramp-like and bedraggled, and Gillian Bevan a nagging, washer-woman Hera. The gods’ characters were fully developed by the end of the play, but much less so in the first half.

The story is a familiar one. Armitage implies a particular relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, and Helen’s actions suggest that she will miss Andromache the most of all the Trojans. Otherwise, the story is played straight, with plenty of action and some excellent wrestling and sword-fighting. Less bloody than some of the Globe’s productions this season, there was at least one fainter on the day I attended (I suspect due to the heat). This might be a particularly good Globe production for younger audience members, as the language is straightforward and the action constant throughout. Recommended.

Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs at Tate Modern

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One of my favourite paintings in all the world is by Matisse (La Danse, of which there are two versions, one in MOMA and one in the Hermitage). Of the two, I prefer the MOMA version for its naturalistic colour scheme, but both are stunningly beautiful, capturing the movement of the dancers and the feeling of dancing, and need to be seen live to appreciate their sheer scale.

Towards the end of his life, Matisse’s mobility declined, and he was no longer able to paint. However, he continued to work, making shapes from painted paper. The latest exhibition at Tate Modern is of these cut-out works. Interestingly, he began by using cut-outs to determine the placement of objects in his paintings, and the first room is devoted to exploring this.

Another of the early rooms is devoted to his book Jazz, which used cut-out images from the theatre and the circus alongside his own text, which is fairly stream-of-consciousness and somewhat rambling, on various subjects including his belief in God. The cut-out images are beautiful but fairly simple in these early stages, with leaf-like forms cut out in bright colours. He disliked the fact that the book printed the images as flat images, losing the texture of the cut-outs. Seeing them in person, I understood the criticism. (However, that didn’t stop the Tate from doing the same thing in the exhibition catalogue). The Oceania and Vence rooms continue with fairly simple shapes, albeit with titles such as “The Eskimo” and “Negro Boxer.” These didn’t really grab me terribly.

However, the exhibition becomes much more interesting as we look at cut-out designs for the chapel Matisse designed in Vence. You can see the use of colour and light in the cut-outs, and how they assisted him to anticipate the results in glass. The cut-outs themselves become more sophisticated, and works such as Zulma and Creole Dancer are truly beautiful, the fragility of the material adding to the ephemeral nature of the works.

It is in the Blue Nudes section that the exhibition really comes into its own. Anyone who has wielded a pair of scissors will appreciate the sheer skill required to produce such lines. In a way, the cut-outs are more impressive than his similar paintings, such as La Danse. With painting, one can refine a line, but with cut-outs, it must be done in one attempt. The curves of the women are as skilfully rendered in these as in his painted works.

Towards the end, the cut-outs become larger and more complex, continuing to reflect line and movement. The rotation reflected in works such as The Snail is as clearly set out as it is in La Danse, but the shapes are more abstract and less figurative.

The exhibition ends with a comparison of Matisse’s cut-out for the Christmas Eve stained-glass window, commissioned for the Time-Life Building in New York, and the window itself. It is fascinating to see the relationship between the two, the opacity of the paper compared to the clarity of the stained glass. Recommended.

 

King Charles III, Almeida

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Love them or loathe them, we all think we know the Royals. We nod when they live up to how we perceive them and we discount any evidence to the contrary. It was inevitable that this play would attract a certain amount of media attention. I expected it to be interesting; I didn’t expect it to be moving.

The play is set in an immediately post-Queen world, in which the family is in mourning and the coronation is a long way away. (Philip having predeceased the Queen). Charles, somewhat cluelessly and certainly unwisely, is manipulated into a confrontation with Parliament by the Leader of the Opposition (Nicholas Rowe, suitably two-faced) on the pertinent topic of privacy. This is the least plausible aspect of the play for me, but to a certain extent it doesn’t really matter, as the debate is an interesting one and leads to thought-provoking results.

To a certain extent you forget that you are watching a play about the royals we know, and it becomes a play about a family like any other. Oliver Chris is tall, blond and a little dull as William (so probably quite accurate). Lydia Wilson is a cunning Kate, which is very amusing to watch although again, implausible. A woman who has spent her adult life essentially without a job is unlikely to harbour Lady Macbeth-style plans. Richard Goulding makes a sympathetic Harry, who has an adventure of his own involving a working class girl, well played by Tafline Steen. Margot Leicester is loyal as Camilla, but the character is underdeveloped. Adam James is an honourable Prime Minister (the politicians are not drawn from reality).

Tim Piggott-Smith is an absolute revelation as Charles. He does not stoop to doing an impersonation, but inhabits the character fully. On occasion he will turn around and the expression will be uncannily like Charles, but it is because he has disappeared completely into the character. He is forthright, stubborn and, at the end, very moving.

The play itself is very good, but somewhat uneven. Written in iambic pentameter, which sits a little uneasily with modern speech, it is often very funny. The tone in the second act is variable, and sometimes you are not sure if you are meant to laugh or not. There were some uncomfortable laughs that I suspect were unintentional. However, the substance of the play is pertinent. In the battle for supremacy between freedom of speech and privacy, how should the balance be struck? In the USA, freedom of speech has clearly won, but in Europe, it is less clear cut.

The production is cleverly done, with the Almeida stripped away to the brickwork and the action taking place on a raised plinth. It will be interesting to see how it is done when it transfers to the West End. There is also effective use of music throughout, and it emphasises how important music is to the atmosphere of pageantry on which the Royal family depends. Highly recommended, it is sold out at the Almeida but the transfer begins at the Wyndham’s in September.

All My Sons

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When I heard that Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre was doing All My Sons this year, I thought that it was awfully soon after the brilliant David Suchet/Zoe Wanamaker production. It was only when I looked it up and realised that production was a full four years ago, that I understood how much it had remained in my mind ever since.

A hard act to follow, then. But, the play’s the thing. All My Sons is, in my opinion, Miller’s strongest work. Each scene is crucial to the next, and information is provided so naturally that you hardly feel the exposition. It is amazing to me that it was originally produced in 1947, so soon after the end of the war. After all, it has been some time since the Iraq war, and we have not seen any great art from that conflict.

It is important, but relatively rare to have a uniformly strong cast. Happily, this production does have such a strong cast. (And the accents are impeccable). Brid Brennan is a forthright Kate, although the emotional range is somewhat narrow. Amy Nuttall is a fiercely intelligent Ann, allowing us to see her understanding of the barbs directed at her, even as she pretends not to get it. The supporting cast are all strong, and I have a particular fondness for Tilly Blackwood as a hilarious Sue Bayliss, in full pneumatic mode.

I have often felt that the role of Chris is a thankless one at the beginning of the play. Such a Mayberry character, he is so apparently full of innocence that he scarcely seems real. One line that struck me this time (“They say in the war he was such a killer”) is hard to reconcile with the shining young man standing before us. He also seems impossibly shy in the romantic scenes for a WWII soldier. But Charles Aitken makes his belief in his father and subsequent collapse eminently believable and terribly touching.

Tom Mannion is wonderful as Joe. Often, actors cast in this role are cerebral and thoughtful. But the character is a fairly uneducated, working class boy made good, and Mannion absolutely nails this. The focus on money and security is absolutely credible in his hands, and the character’s lack of emotional resilience is brought starkly to the forefront.

One aspect of the production that worked particularly well in the open air format is the claustrophobia of life in small town America. It made perfect sense that the neighbours were simply wandering in from their own backyards, and that everyone knew everything about everyone else’s lives. As someone who is delighted with the anonymity of living in a large city, I felt a visceral reaction to it.

This production, again, is ending soon (I seem to see plays near the end of their runs because I am very choosy about where I sit). It is highly recommended, however, and if you luck into some good weather as I did, it is well worth catching.

Good People

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I’ve mentioned before that I have a thing about accents. If they’re not right, they take me straight out of the play and into the nuances of the vowels. This is particularly important with regional accents. Most British actors can do a good generic North American newsreader accent, and many North American actors can deliver RP. But regional accents are much, much trickier to do at all, and extremely difficult to do well.

Good People, a play set in South Boston, was always going to be a challenge. The Southie accent is a very particular accent. Think Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting (and some Southie residents even criticised that). It takes cues from Ireland but is in no way Irish, is nasal like a Brooklyn accent but with even flatter vowel sounds, and is extremely difficult to reproduce, particularly without sounding like you’re making fun.

Imelda Staunton (Margaret) deserves utmost praise, for not only nailing the accent but doing it so subtly that it was in no way a caricature. She acted the part (of a local woman at the end of her financial rope) beautifully, but it was her verbal prowess that really impressed me. Lloyd Owen (Mike), her high school boyfriend made good, to whom she appeals for help, did a lovely job of beginning the play with a fairly generic East Coast accent, and then allowing the Southie to slip out more and more as he became more and more agitated. The rest of the cast was less successful, although Matthew Barker did a fine job.

I thought the second half was much better than the first, which sets up the action and has some good jokes, but really needs the rapport between the three local women to feel completely natural, which didn’t happen for me. The second half, however, particularly the pivotal scene with Margaret, Mike and his wife, was both hilarious and thought-provoking.

The play is an intelligent one, bringing up issues of privilege, luck, and history. We all know how hard we’ve worked to get where we are, so it is often unpleasant to be reminded that hard work alone is not enough to succeed. The choices we make are important, but all successful people are lucky in some way. Lucky to be born to the right parents, lucky to be smart, lucky to be talented, lucky to have been given the opportunity for an education.

Poverty is a subject that is not explored at the theatre often enough. Staunton delivers a moving speech about how people on the poverty line are often one misstep away from disaster, and that one misstep can lead to a chain of events that have unintended and awful consequences. It was an insight into the short-term thinking of poor people that people with more resources often fail to understand.

A somewhat uneven but fascinating play. Well acted throughout, with a powerful central performance from Imelda Staunton. Closing soon, but recommended.

Eugene Onegin, Glyndebourne

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It is astonishing to me that this production is 20 years old, as it is timeless. Minimal, with great use of curtains and strategically placed sheaves of wheat, it places the emphasis firmly on the performers. The costumes are particularly beautiful and receive due emphasis thanks to the lack of scenery. I am not the kind of person who usually notices lighting particularly, but the lighting in this production was beautiful and cast emphasis precisely.

The other way in which this production is very successful is that it puts the emphasis on the performers’ singing (and dancing). And what singing it was. Beautiful throughout, with Ekaterina Scherbachenko a soulful, well-acted Tatyana, Ekaterina Sergeeva a petulant Olga and Diana Montague and Irina Tchistjakova well cast as Madame Larina and Filipyevna.

But for me, the night belonged to the men. Andrei Bondarenko was a stirring Onegin. It’s an extremely difficult character to play, as I find it difficult to muster any sympathy for Onegin whatsoever. Perhaps it would be different if I could read Russian, but in English both the book and the opera leave me with no feeling for him whatsoever. However, Bondarenko’s singing was very beautiful, with an open, glittering tone, and his acting excellent.

The two performances I enjoyed most were Edgaras Montvidas as Lensky and Taras Shtonda as Prince Gremin. Montvidas is Latvian and Shtonda Ukrainian, so it stands to reason that their Russian would be excellent. I found Montvidas’s Lensky heartbreaking, and his final aria before the duel astonishing in its clarity and beauty. Shtonda, as well, had a deep richness of tone that made his Prince Gremin a dignified, eloquent figure.

The ballet dancers in the Polonaise came as a surprise to me, and a delightful one. It set the tone admirably for what followed. What this production does so well is emphasise the economy with which Tchaikovsky tells the story. Each act is perfectly self-contained, and there is quite literally never a dull moment. The music is rich and the plot relentless. It is a wonderful opera, and this production shows it to its best advantage.

The audience was generally knowledgeable and very appreciative of the quality of the performances. However, there was a woman three or four rows behind me who whispered throughout. It was not too annoying where we were, but if I had been a couple of rows further back I suspect I would have said something. Given that the usual crowd at Glyndebourne does not generally hold back from pointing out bad behaviour, I am rather surprised that no one did. However, it did not detract from what was an absolutely stunning evening.

As a postscript, I don’t go to Glyndebourne every week. I have compressed my visits into the period of time before and after the World Cup, because during that time my partner will be entirely devoted to the football. He enjoys his Glyndebourne visits, but for him the ruling passion comes first.